Monday, May 28, 2007

Gryphon's Word of the Day, May 28, 2007

The word of the day1 for May 27, 2007 is "cumulus" — noun 1: heap, accumulation. 2: a dense puffy cloud form having a flat base and rounded outlines often piled up like a mountain.

Happy Memorial Day to you all. The sun has been skipping in and out among the clouds again today. The air is sultry, readying itself for full summer. The wind has switched around to the south again. The clouds are piling up in the west, getting ready to pour again. It's probably a good thing that we haven't stirred from the house except to get the paper.

I have to marvel at the European women who traveled across this country in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They wore long skirts with multiple petticoats. They were walking for the most part and cooking over open fires. Even with sun bonnets and masks, which would have held in the heat, they would not have been immune to the sun. Fashion is a killer. It wasn't just that era, but in the early 1970s when midi-skirts, boots and mutton-sleeved blouses were in fashion, the women of Puerto Rico were wearing the fashion in the streets and looking down their noses at us turistas in our short shorts and tank tops.

The quote for today is from
Denise Levertov (b. 1923), Anglo–U.S. poet. “Clouds”:

    
I watch the clouds as I see them
     in pomp advancing, pursuing
     the fallen sun.


;^)  Jan

Tags:

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I like that word "cumulus"  kind of rolls of the tongue dos'nt it.   Thanks so much for coment on my wee journal.  sybilsybil45